Cameron backs out. So much for that attempt to sink skeptical arguments.
From King of the World to Chicken of the Sea: Director James Cameron challenges climate skeptics to debate and then bails out at last minute
Via the SPPI Blog, Source: Climatedepot
Hide the Debate: Cameron ducks Climate Debate with Breitbart, Morano, & McElhinney
by Marc Morano
ASPEN COLORADO: Hollywood director James Cameron challenged three high profile global warming skeptics to a public debate at a global warming and energy conference. But Cameron backed out of the debate at the last minute after environmentalists “came out of the woodwork” to warn him not to engage in a debate with skeptics because it was not in his best interest.
Cameron challenged Andrew Breitbart, Climate Depot’s Marc Morano and filmmaker Ann McElhinney of ‘Not Evil Just Wrong.’ The debate was already in the program for the Aspen American Renewable Energy Day (AREDAY) summit. The website program described the agreed to debate as “AREDAY Climate Change Debate: Reality or Fiction?” (see image below)
After setting up the public global warming debate, Cameron and his negotiator then changed formats multiple times and initially said it would be open to the media and then said he would only participate if it was private with no recording devices. The skeptics agreed to all the changes. According to AREDAY organizers, activist Joseph Romm of Climate Progress urged Cameron not to go ahead with the debate as well.
Cameron’s cancellation of the agreed to debate did not happen until one debate participant (Morano) was already in mid-air, flying from DC to Aspen on Saturday August 21 to attend the debate. (AREDAY did grant Morano a 90 minute slot to speak at the summit. See: Climate Depot’s Presentation at Warmists’ Summit Met By Hostile Interrupting Moderator and Crowd; Call for Morano to Kill Himself!)
(Morano Note: After ducking debate, James Cameron boldly slammed global warming skeptics as “swine” on the day he was supposed to be debating them. “I think they’re swine” Cameron told a friendly audience at the AREDAY summit. Also see: Cameron Morphs Into Gore, Quits AGW Debate: ‘Chickened out–even after he won Gore-like concessions that there would be no media and no audio or video record kept’ — How does Cameron square ducking a climate debate he set up when just a few months ago he seemed so confident? See: Director James Cameron Unleashed: Calls for gun fight with global warming skeptics: ‘I want to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads’)
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Below is detailed report from Ann McElhinney of www.NotEvilJustWrong.com on how Cameron ducked out of debate he set up.
James Cameron—King of Hypocrites
Written by Ann McElhinney
Sunday, 22 August 2010 17:49
Last March James Cameron sounded defiant.
The Avatar director was determined to expose journalists, such as myself, who thought it was important to ask questions about climate change orthodoxy and the radical “solutions” being proposed.
Cameron said was itching to debate the issue and show skeptical journalists and scientists that they were wrong.
“I want to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads,” he said in an interview.
Well, a few weeks ago Mr. Cameron seemed to honor his word.
His representatives contacted myself and two other well known skeptics, Marc Morano of the Climate Depot website and Andrew Breitbart, the new media entrepreneur.
Mr. Cameron was attending the AREDAY environmental conference in Aspen Colorado 19-22 August. He wanted the conference to end with a debate on climate change. Cameron would be flanked with two scientists. It would be 90 minutes long. It would be streamed live on the internet.
They hoped the debate would attract a lot of media coverage.
“We are delighted to have Fox News, Newsmax, The Washington Times and anyone else you’d like. The more the better,” one of James Cameron’s organizers said in an email.
It looked like James Cameron really was a man of his word who would get to take on the skeptics he felt were so endangering humanity.
Everyone on our side agreed with their conditions. The debate was even listed on the AREDAY agenda.
But then as the debate approached James Cameron’s side started changing the rules.
They wanted to change their team. We agreed.
They wanted to change the format to less of a debate—to “a roundtable”. We agreed.
Then they wanted to ban our cameras from the debate. We could have access to their footage. We agreed.
Bizarrely, for a brief while, the worlds most successful film maker suggested that no cameras should be allowed-that sound only should be recorded. We agreed
Then finally James Cameron, who so publicly announced that he “wanted to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out,” decided to ban the media from the shoot out.
He even wanted to ban the public. The debate/roundtable would only be open to those who attended the conference.
No media would be allowed and there would be no streaming on the internet. No one would be allowed to record it in any way.
We all agreed to that.
And then, yesterday, just one day before the debate, his representatives sent an email that Mr. “shoot it out ” Cameron no longer wanted to take part. The debate was cancelled.
James Cameron’s behavior raises some very important questions.
Does he genuinely believe in man made climate change? If he believes it is a danger to humanity surely he should be debating the issue every chance he gets ?
Or is it just a pose?
The man who called for an open and public debate at “high noon” suddenly doesn’t want his policies open to serious scrutiny.
I was looking forward to debating with the film maker. I was looking forward to finding out where we agreed and disagreed and finding a way forward that would help the poorest people in the developing and developed world.
But that is not going to happen because somewhere along the way James Cameron, a great film maker, has moved from King of the World to being King of the Hypocrites.
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Addendum
In other news from the SPPI Blog
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Climate Depot’s Presentation at Warmists’ Summit Met By Hostile Interrupting Moderator and Crowd; Call for Morano to Kill Himself!
Source: Climatedepot
Global Warming Summit’s Warm Welcome: Morano told to drive car into garage with engine running and then close the doors
By Marc Morano
[SPPI Note: This is the same arrogant and hapless Joe Romm who claimed that global warming cause the collapse of the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis in August of 2007. For other entries on Romm see here: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/commentaries/climate_mccarthyism.pdf
and here: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/blogwatch/climate_inquisition.pdf
and here: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/commentaries/romms_fairy_tales.pdf ]
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Note from Climate Depot’s Executive Editor Marc Morano:
My presentation at Aspen American Renewable Energy Day (AREDAY) summit on Sunday August 22, 2010 at 5:30 was met by a rude moderator and hostile audience. I was offered the 90 minute time slot to present the skeptical view of man-made climate change after Hollywood director James Cameron’s cowardly final cancellation of a pre-planned and agreed to global warming debate. See here: From King of the World to Chicken of the Sea: Director James Cameron Sets up Debate with Skeptics Then Flees! Cameron Ducks Climate Debate with Breitbart, Morano, & McElhinney
Cameron’s cancellation of the debate did not happen until I was already in mid-air, flying from DC to Aspen on Saturday August 21 to attend the debate. After challenging us to the public debate, Cameron was spooked by Joseph Romm of Climate Progress who warned him not to debate us. Finally, we were told Cameron would debate us if Romm joined the debate and at Romm’s insistence there would be no cameras or media present. We agreed and I flew to Aspen. (See full report of Cameron’s chickening out here. How does Cameron square ducking a climate debate he set up when just a few months ago he seemed so confident. See: Director James Cameron Unleashed: Calls for gun fight with global warming skeptics: ‘I want to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads’)
After arriving I found out that Cameron had canceled the debate that he challenged us to. The AREDAY global warming summit organizers then offered me the consolation prize of 90 minutes to speak to the conference and present the skeptical argument with Q and A from the audience. But the 90 minute event turned out to be further evidence of manipulation by Cameron and the ARDAY conference organizers.
My PowerPoint presentation was repeatedly interrupted by ARDAY moderator Richard Greene and the audience was not receptive to me continuing my presentation. Instead, the bulk of my presentation turned into a disjointed moderator and audience rant session. I attempted several times to return to my presentation, but the crowd and moderator refused to cooperate and seemed completely disinterested.
One participant confused carbon dioxide with carbon monoxide. She suggested I kill himself by driving my car into my garage and then close the doors with the engine running. I twice attempted to explain to the ARDAY conference participant that there was a difference between carbon dioxide — a harmless trace essential gas we exhale from our mouth– and toxic carbon monoxide, but to no avail. I sadly shook my head and told the audience: “Wow, what a warm welcome I have gotten here.”
In the end, the ARDAY’s offer of 90 minutes for me to present the skeptical view of man-made global warming after Cameron’s debate cancellation revealed itself to be essentially disingenuous.
@ur momisugly SimonH
Actually, Avatar’s theme was the big bad mining companies taking over a primitive garden of eden and forcing the indigenous people to a reservation. And only the actions of the hero, combined with the spiritual assistance of Gaia, brought down the military might of the invading miners. All pretty well in line with far-left-greenie-crapology. That said, the CG graphics were pretty cool.
*facepalm*
Yellow.
Cameron is such a loudmouth coward.
Intellectually and morally bankrupt, like the whole AGW enterprise.
I have to agree, his apparent behavior indicates that as he “studied up” on the science he realized he was backing the wrong side. However, Avatar was a wonderful film? Compared to what? I was only in awe at how unoriginal it was! And will that generation EVER get tired of painting capitalists as evil, heartless, murderous corporations? I doubt it.
First half of Titanic was a good movie. Second half, not so good.
Any other of Cameron’s work is meaningless drivel with one odd exception: I love the Terminator stories. (The whole time Alien was playing I was screaming “OPEN AN AIRLOCK!”)
“It’s not evil just wrong”, but just silly. Why so a supposed intelligent people, as they think of themselves, who imagine themselves being the saviors of the world couldn’t imagine a more real threat, if they wanted to invent a credible story to scare the people of the world and thus achieve their esoteric/initiate goal of global governance?
SimonH, you lost me at “wonderful film”. I guess I just don’t have the affection you do for oversized, anti-Western, anti-military, and anti-corporate smurfs. Cameron is now permanently on my “no fly” list.
AREDAY certainly had an impressive list of flakes for their presentations . Dayrl Hannah should return to her tepee .
[snip]
REPLY: sorry Max, even though we are on the same side of the debate, that flamebait is way over the top – Anthony
SimonH says: 23, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Not everyone agrees.
http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/culture/arts/movies/5702-Movie-Review-Avatar.html
Oh, come on now,
Have sympathy for him – he is seeing his dreams of a one world socialist government crumble. His dream of being one of the rulers is disintegrating before his eyes. As is his dream of telling others how to live.
Thank god we got rid of this threat without another world war and only a few hundred thousands dying from the bio fuel scam instead of many millions from carbon elimination.
Thanks
JK
He asks some people to join him in debate and then bails at the last minute. Then turns around and calls those people “swine”.
Way to keep it classy Jimmy.
We can only hope in doing a bit of actual reading on the topic, as in both “sides,” he realized the issue is at least, not so “black and white,” and in addition, at least that the science is indeed NOT settled.
he is changing his mind almost as often as changing wifes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cameron
I’m not ststistician, but “corelation” and “causations” rings a bell 😉
[snip OTT]
The currnet tactic is to pretend that AGW skepticism is the new creationism and thus shouldn’t be honored with a debate as this would give the “false” impression that there is any question that man made CO2 is leading humanity to a catastrophe.
It may be a smart ploy considering the weakness of the case for catastrophic warming. They have already convinced the James Camerons and Leaonardo DiCaprios of the world, and the mass media, so what do they have to gain by exposing their dogma to public scrutiny?
Hopefully this cowardly tactic will blow up in their face and continue to convince the public of the hollowness of their arguments.
I haven’t seen Avatar yet. Regardless how “wonderful” the film is, I will definitely skip it. I’ll be as attendant as Cameron was in this debate. NOT!
BTW, does he really understand, in real life, what a shootout is at high noon? I’m afraid the man lives in a fantasy land, full of flim-flam, folly and fiction.
Mr. Cameron’s mistake was in entering Mr. Gore’s realm of AGW, where eyes are closed, ears are closed, and, above all, the mind is closed. He should consider these words from the theater, with apologies to Mr. Shakespeare:
Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5:
It was a good decision just to keep it where it belongs: To fantasy realm. Any discussion about it would have been like trying to prove that cinderella really exists.
Nolo Contendre,
I have to disagree. Avatar was everything you say,”anti-Western, anti-military, and anti-corporate” but was still amazing. I just ignored the silly new age political “message” and enjoyed the ride.
C’mom, who doesn’t want to fly on a purply pterodactyl and make it with a blue, seven foot tall, golden eyed, willowy alien chick?
Maybe you didn’t see it in 3D? It was visually stunning, especially in 3D I Max.
Cameron is a cowardly leftist idiot but he can craft compelling cinema.
Imagine a world where everyone looks at the facts, analyses their perceptions, presents their perspectives and then listens carefully to opposing or tangential arguments.
Imagine a world where a person can change his mind and his position based upon new and (more) correct information.
Imagine a world where someone that opens their mind and evolves into a new paradigm would be welcomed as a leader and an explorer.
Imagine a world where there would be no fear of loss of personal standing based upon the refutation of the status quo or the support of new and innovative positions.
You’ll have to imagine it because it ain’t anywhere ’round these parts…
I started noticing about a year ago that Cameron appeared to be an AGW Kool-Aid drinker, and stopped supporting his projects since. This more recent episode simply confirms my decision was an informed one.
Cameron’s ducking out on the debate certainly lends a great deal of credibility to the AGW skeptics side of the argument. I wonder why he turned tail and ran even after changing the rules of engagement time after time until the whole ‘discussion’ would essentially be hidden under the ‘cone of silence’. I can only conclude that in his preparation for the debate he discovered the weakness of the pro-AGW arguments. He then realized he had neither the facts nor the bluff to avoid a public humiliation in an open debate. The ‘swine’ comment confirms that he has resorted to the last refuge of the those unable to refute the argument so they instead attack the person. Cameron’s behaviour confirms AGW is humbug.
I tried to watch Avatar – for something like 2 minutes. The same two minutes were censored out in the version of the Titanic I watched – with the Kate Winslet posing for her sketching.
Before all the Titanic and Avatar crap, Cameron made The Terminator, Aliens, True Lies and the Abyss (what a near-death scene!) – can you believe that. Obviously Cameron lost his mind during the Titanic movie. Imagine making the Terminator movie and then making Avatar – what a washout, heh.
James Who?
Doesnt seem to make films that I want to go and see!